Concealment and
also observation of the enemy trenches was extremely important during the war
and a pioneer in this field was Solomon J. Solomon who developed and perfected
‘The Observation Tree.’

The card on the left carries a mono printed photograph on a
buff coloured background, Printed details on the front of it, tell us it was
card number 9 in a series published by the Imperial War Museum – probably in
the early ‘twenties. The caption below the picture reads, "MODEL: CAMOUFLAGE
TREE OBSERVATION POST." ‘Waterlow & Sons Limited, London’, printed the
card. Through a cutaway section of the model, an observation officer is looking
through a spy-hole towards the enemy lines. The model splendidly illustrated an
ingenious example of British deception. One of the pioneers of Great War
camouflage, Solomon J. Solomon, created it.

Solomon was
fifty-four at the outbreak of hostilities, and a successful English portrait
painter, who quickly came to appreciate the concept of using artificial
material for camouflage. For example, he suggested that dyed butter muslin held
up by bamboo poles was a splendid method of concealing trenches and artillery
pieces from aerial observation. He submitted the idea to the War Office, but
after trials at Woolwich, his idea was turned down. However, in the summer of
1915, Solomon, who by then had enlisted in the Artists Rifles, was ordered to
G.H.Q. France. He was instructed to design and construct a camouflaged
observation post, which would to all intents and purposes resemble a typical
shell-damaged tree trunk. In accordance with his task, he was given a
commission as a Colonel in the Royal Engineers. A tree in a prominent position
in the front-line was selected as a likely candidate and detailed drawings were
made of it. Returning to England the new camoufleur set to work. The ‘tree’,
constructed from sections of steel tubing, was just large enough to enable an
observer to climb up a ladder inside. The sections were bolted together and covered with bark taken - with the King’s permission - from a willow
in Windsor Great Park. Finally, the whole assembly was screwed into a collar,
which was later fixed to the ground.

One night early in
1916, on the British trench-line in France, a shell-damaged willow was cut down,
and before dawn, it had been replaced by Solomon’s’ dummy tree. He recorded the
event by painting it. The picture, which is now in the Imperial War Museum,
shows "The erection of the First Observation Post Tree"located on the
embankment of the Yser canal. Among the figures on the extreme right of the scene,
is that of Colonel Solomon.

Solomon erected a
number of observation post trees on the Western Front, which on occasions also
doubled as snipers’ posts and were reported to be "extremely useful."